About Zpannend Zernike

Seeds under the microscope

What did people in Groningen eat, grow, and trade thousands of years ago? Archaeobotany finds the answers in tiny traces: ancient seeds, plant remains, and other organic material preserved in the soil. At this station, you can look at real archaeological finds under a microscope and discover what plants can tell us about the way people lived long before any of us were born.

See your own tongue move

Have you always wondered how you are able to make sounds? And why doesn't everyone pronounce the "r" in the same way? Come by and let us make an ultrasound of your tongue, so we can show you how it works.

Dialect Detective

The way we speak carries traces of where we grew up, where we live, and who we are. Dialectology is the study of those differences, the subtle variations in pronunciation, vocabulary, and rhythm that tell you exactly where someone is from. Can you guess which part of the Netherlands the speaker calls home? Harder than it sounds. More fun than you think.

Human or AI?

Computational linguistics studies how computers process, generate, and understand human language. As AI becomes better at producing texts that seem to be written by humans, the question of what actually makes language ‘human’ becomes more urgent and more interesting. Can you tell the difference between a text written by a person or generated by an AI?

Stories are magic

They tell us how the world works, what to expect, who we can trust, and what we can achieve. Through narrative research, we explore how stories are created and how they affect us.

Now it’s your turn to be the writer! You get to decide how the story ends.